The Complexity of Attracting New Clients in Financial Services: The SEO Game Has Changed

This article could easily start out as a practice management article because of what financial professionals and companies need to continuously do to get on the radar of people searching for a new advisor. It’s becoming more complex when it comes to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) marketing, and you must consider SEO updating get the job done (or move aside). If you’ve been told that you need to only have an updated website, or only podcast or blog once a month that is wrong. I’ve written previous articles on ALL of the things you need to do to continually draw attention to yourself. Here’s a few important SEO technology items you may not be aware of that can negatively impact your business:

There’s been a shift in location enablement due in part from the advancement of mobile devices. Few people are disabling location enablement from their devices when they activate their mobile device. This affects you being ‘discovered’ if your website and social profiles are not synced with Google (or Apple, Yelp, BING etc.) This is common in outdated websites that don’t have Google (or other provider) analytics embedded in their technology. Gone are the days when your website should only have the address and not a Google Map or directions capability on it. Secondly, Google mapping is not enough. Here’s why:

When client’s search ‘financial advisor’ from their mobile device, their location enablement settings are showing them the top 4 offices closest to their real location at the time of their search. Confused if you’re going to show up based on your website? If you have location enablement ‘enabled’ on your smartphone, try searching ‘financial advisor’ from your office and see if you come up. If you don’t appear in the search listings you may want to talk to your website vendor (I may have opened up a can of worms here). There are now two classifications that impact location enablement- SEO vs. Local SEO. Your website very likely has SEO and not Local SEO which may not position you as a ‘local’ option during the potential client’s search. The best way to combat this is by updating your local listing.

SEO Boosting is advancing (again) not based solely on keyword searches or length of blog, video, or podcasts. Just when you thought you had it figured out, SEO has changed. Key considerations being ‘analyzed by SEO’ are the frequency of updating, linking to other dynamic sources (validation of content) inside your content, and reclassification of keywords.

One of the best ways to boost SEO is through Social Media (If you’ve built your company/brand profile). You should have both a business profile (no pic but logo) and a personal profile to make this work best for you. New mobile social media users grew by 34 percent in 2017, estimating that as many as 74 percent of customers use social media to investigate through social media or pose a question to their social groups before they buy. Social media helps to optimize Local SEO, generates more engaging messaging (blog, podcasts, or video) and creates dialog that gets you noticed on search. If you don’t like social media and don’t believe you should be using it, well…you’re going to miss out on new business. LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook continues to be the most widely used social platforms for all ages that need financial guidance and your help; make sure you’re on social platforms they’re using.